Evolution is accepted as fact by all reputable scientists and indeed by theologians, yet millions of people still question its veracity. Here the author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and The God Delusion takes on creationists, including followers of "intelligent design" and any who question the evidence of evolution through natural selection. Richard Dawkins sifts through layers of proven scientific facts—from the fossil record, the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects, the "time clocks" of trees and radioactive dating, and the archaeological traces of our earliest ancestors to confirmation from molecular biology and genetics—to build an ironclad case.

"If Charles Darwin walked into a 21st-century bookstore and wanted to know how his theory had fared, this is the book he should pick up. Dawkins remains a superb translator of complex scientific concepts. It doesn't matter if he's spinning metaphors for the fossil record (like a spy camera in a murder trial) or deftly explaining the method by which scientists measure the genetic difference between distinct species: he has a way of making the drollest details feel like a revelation. Even if one already believes in the survival of the fittest, there is something thrilling about learning that the hoof of a horse is homologous to the fingernail of the human middle finger, or that some dinosaurs had a second brain of ganglion cells in their pelvis, which helped compensate for the tiny brain in their head. As Darwin famously noted, 'There is grandeur in this view of life.' What Dawkins demonstrates is that this view of life isn't just grand: it's also undeniably true."—Publishers Weekly